I appreciate this thought exercise but want to offer a few challenges:
1) I think it's worth naming what feels like an inherent assumption in this exercise (correct me if I'm wrong): that development, collapse, and recovery fairly universally go in a particular direction -- from hunter-gather societies to, eventually, industrial ones. But why is that the case? Haven't there been societies (or at least human communities), that have rejected or resisted this path of development? In fact, could the length of transition not be partly influenced by resistance to such so-called "progress"?
2) You use the reduction of human labor in agriculture as an indication of the transition to industrial societies, with technological advancement as the cause. But you seem to ignore the role of energy, specifically the rapid, exponential growth of fossil fuel inputs as the literal driver of the mechanization and industrialization of the food system. The industrial food system is estimated to consume ~13 calories of fossil energy for every 1 calorie produced.
You wrote:
"The last step, going from pre-industrial to industrial, seems to be more difficult again. Arguably it only happened once in Great Britain and spread from there to the rest of the world. Why did it happen in Great Britain and not in other places? This is still pretty much up for debate and until this debate is settled we can’t really tell."
I thought it broadly accepted that Great Britain made this transition, yes because of technological advancement, but technology that was able to harness vast (though short-lived) coal deposits.
How would an assessment of post-collapse recovery change if we viewed the transition from pre-industrial to industrial as having only been possible as a result of growing dependence on finite, depleting energy sources? What happens when the growth of those resources, let alone their absolute decline, occurs? I'd argue that this dynamic not only leads to collapse of industrial society, it negates the likelihood of ever "recovering" to that state again.
1) I think for most societies it seems to be the case that they tend to develop into the direction of higher complexity. This is at least the conclusion that I have drawn from the Seshat database. It is true that some societies stop this development at some point or even reverse, but this does not invalidate that most seem to continue. Luke Kemp is currently in the last stages of writing a book about this topic. His thesis is that once you have store-able resources, which can be accumulated over generations, strong incentives arise to increase complexity, not necessarily to bring progress, but to implement the structures needed for an elite to extract resources from the rest of the population. As you can find some kind of accumulatable resource almost everywhere, this leads to this trend being almost everywhere.
2) I don't think it is finally settled why industrialization happened. Fossil fuels obviously had a major part in it, but I can imagine counterfactual worlds in which a slower industrial revolution happens based on charcoal for example. Also, there are examples of things like Mohism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohism), which also focused on very similar things as Europe during the Industrialization, had coal available, but never became as society changing as what happened in Great Britain.
At least when it comes to coal there is still plenty around, so we probably have at least one other trial when it comes to industrialization if coal is the single most important factor. Age of Invention recently wrote a great post about coal and why it is not that straightforwardly to adapt, or even helpful as we usually assume: https://www.ageofinvention.xyz/p/age-of-invention-the-coal-conquest
"we have already used up much of the easily accessible resources like coal or metals. Every following civilization would not have these available to kick start their industrial revolution."
On the other hand, some would argue metals are now more available than ever since they're in high quantities in landfills and cities. And while it is true that much of the easily accessible coal has been used up, some deposits are still easy to access, or so I'm told.
Yeah that is a good point. But it also means that these resources are somewhat concentrated. I would assume that a vast majority of those a concentrated in the United States, Central Europe and maybe China. So, if for example humanity mostly survives in Africa then they would be cut off from most of these metals.
Concerning the coal, I also am aware of that argument, and it makes sense to me that there is still coal in easily accessible places, like there are several mines not that far from me in Germany. However, I would still assume that the easiest ways to access coal are long gone, because it does not really make any sense that we would use the more difficult ones first.
Interesting article. I would encourage you to also consider transitions between additional types of societies. There are more types of societies than you mentioned. I outline one typology, though I do not consider the time that it takes to transition between them:
The transition to industrial societies is getting much more rapid. Many Asian nations have made the transition in one generation.
Regarding recovery after collapse I think that it will largely be determined by:
1) the nature of the collapse (famine vs asteroid impact vs civil war, etc)
2) how much knowledge of the most advanced technologies is preserved and the skills for how to produce them.
3) ability to grow food
4) how localized the collapse is (one nation vs one region vs entire world)
Unless there is a total global collapse, I think would be very rapid as long as the knowledge and skills is preserved. If we were to lose the ability to grow grains (rice, wheat and corn) globally, it would be very difficult to come back.
As for the importance of the preservation of knowledge, you should read this book:
Thanks for your comment Michael. I would probably classify the types you mention as different manifestations of pre-industrial societies on different levels of complexity. Generally, I put more weight to quantitative history like Seshat, because it relies less on intuition and sample selection. And Seshat nicely shows that you can track all kinds of civilizations on a similar trajectory of complexity through time.
I also mention in the text that China has switched to industrial pretty quickly, but that it did so by having access to more developed nations as trading partners, which would not be the case for large-scale collapse.
Concerning your points about recovery:
1) Agree
2) Agree
3) Agree
4) I think local and probably even regional collapse is quite unlikely. Either the whole global system collapses or we make it all through.
Thank you for the recommendation of the book. I am familiar with it, but haven't included it here because it does not really make estimates of timeframes.
Hi Florian,
I appreciate this thought exercise but want to offer a few challenges:
1) I think it's worth naming what feels like an inherent assumption in this exercise (correct me if I'm wrong): that development, collapse, and recovery fairly universally go in a particular direction -- from hunter-gather societies to, eventually, industrial ones. But why is that the case? Haven't there been societies (or at least human communities), that have rejected or resisted this path of development? In fact, could the length of transition not be partly influenced by resistance to such so-called "progress"?
2) You use the reduction of human labor in agriculture as an indication of the transition to industrial societies, with technological advancement as the cause. But you seem to ignore the role of energy, specifically the rapid, exponential growth of fossil fuel inputs as the literal driver of the mechanization and industrialization of the food system. The industrial food system is estimated to consume ~13 calories of fossil energy for every 1 calorie produced.
You wrote:
"The last step, going from pre-industrial to industrial, seems to be more difficult again. Arguably it only happened once in Great Britain and spread from there to the rest of the world. Why did it happen in Great Britain and not in other places? This is still pretty much up for debate and until this debate is settled we can’t really tell."
I thought it broadly accepted that Great Britain made this transition, yes because of technological advancement, but technology that was able to harness vast (though short-lived) coal deposits.
How would an assessment of post-collapse recovery change if we viewed the transition from pre-industrial to industrial as having only been possible as a result of growing dependence on finite, depleting energy sources? What happens when the growth of those resources, let alone their absolute decline, occurs? I'd argue that this dynamic not only leads to collapse of industrial society, it negates the likelihood of ever "recovering" to that state again.
Hey Asher,
thanks for your detailed comment!
1) I think for most societies it seems to be the case that they tend to develop into the direction of higher complexity. This is at least the conclusion that I have drawn from the Seshat database. It is true that some societies stop this development at some point or even reverse, but this does not invalidate that most seem to continue. Luke Kemp is currently in the last stages of writing a book about this topic. His thesis is that once you have store-able resources, which can be accumulated over generations, strong incentives arise to increase complexity, not necessarily to bring progress, but to implement the structures needed for an elite to extract resources from the rest of the population. As you can find some kind of accumulatable resource almost everywhere, this leads to this trend being almost everywhere.
2) I don't think it is finally settled why industrialization happened. Fossil fuels obviously had a major part in it, but I can imagine counterfactual worlds in which a slower industrial revolution happens based on charcoal for example. Also, there are examples of things like Mohism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohism), which also focused on very similar things as Europe during the Industrialization, had coal available, but never became as society changing as what happened in Great Britain.
At least when it comes to coal there is still plenty around, so we probably have at least one other trial when it comes to industrialization if coal is the single most important factor. Age of Invention recently wrote a great post about coal and why it is not that straightforwardly to adapt, or even helpful as we usually assume: https://www.ageofinvention.xyz/p/age-of-invention-the-coal-conquest
"we have already used up much of the easily accessible resources like coal or metals. Every following civilization would not have these available to kick start their industrial revolution."
On the other hand, some would argue metals are now more available than ever since they're in high quantities in landfills and cities. And while it is true that much of the easily accessible coal has been used up, some deposits are still easy to access, or so I'm told.
More discussion on this in Belfield 2023: https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003331384-6/collapse-recovery-existential-risk-haydn-belfield
Yeah that is a good point. But it also means that these resources are somewhat concentrated. I would assume that a vast majority of those a concentrated in the United States, Central Europe and maybe China. So, if for example humanity mostly survives in Africa then they would be cut off from most of these metals.
Concerning the coal, I also am aware of that argument, and it makes sense to me that there is still coal in easily accessible places, like there are several mines not that far from me in Germany. However, I would still assume that the easiest ways to access coal are long gone, because it does not really make any sense that we would use the more difficult ones first.
Interesting article. I would encourage you to also consider transitions between additional types of societies. There are more types of societies than you mentioned. I outline one typology, though I do not consider the time that it takes to transition between them:
https://frompovertytoprogress.substack.com/p/why-you-need-to-know-about-society
The transition to industrial societies is getting much more rapid. Many Asian nations have made the transition in one generation.
Regarding recovery after collapse I think that it will largely be determined by:
1) the nature of the collapse (famine vs asteroid impact vs civil war, etc)
2) how much knowledge of the most advanced technologies is preserved and the skills for how to produce them.
3) ability to grow food
4) how localized the collapse is (one nation vs one region vs entire world)
Unless there is a total global collapse, I think would be very rapid as long as the knowledge and skills is preserved. If we were to lose the ability to grow grains (rice, wheat and corn) globally, it would be very difficult to come back.
As for the importance of the preservation of knowledge, you should read this book:
https://www.amazon.com/Knowledge-Rebuild-Civilization-Aftermath-Cataclysm-ebook/dp/B00DMCV5YS
Thanks for your comment Michael. I would probably classify the types you mention as different manifestations of pre-industrial societies on different levels of complexity. Generally, I put more weight to quantitative history like Seshat, because it relies less on intuition and sample selection. And Seshat nicely shows that you can track all kinds of civilizations on a similar trajectory of complexity through time.
I also mention in the text that China has switched to industrial pretty quickly, but that it did so by having access to more developed nations as trading partners, which would not be the case for large-scale collapse.
Concerning your points about recovery:
1) Agree
2) Agree
3) Agree
4) I think local and probably even regional collapse is quite unlikely. Either the whole global system collapses or we make it all through.
Thank you for the recommendation of the book. I am familiar with it, but haven't included it here because it does not really make estimates of timeframes.